Yes, there is. The change in default icon placement reflects the paradigm shift from using icons that only open applications to a system that integrates the desktop icons with applications and file management.

Your applications can still be accessed individually from the applications folder in the new default or from the tray icons. If you want to access applications rather than click on an icon and access your data with its associated application (which you can configure to suit your needs), you can add more icons on your own desktop or add some to the tray (or add a separate tray as I have).

I remain unconvinced that DSL 4's desktop should be cluttered with icons by default.

--------------"It felt kind of like having a pitbull terrier on my rear end."-- meo (copyright(c)2008, all rights reserved)

Yes, there is. The change in default icon placement reflects the paradigm shift...

I'm not trying to convince you that the desktop should be changed. What I am trying to convince you, is that it didn't *need* to be.

I championed the cluttered desktop from the perspective of new users and users who are either too rushed or too constrained to try and hit small targets that are buried within other small targets. That conversation has been terminated by Robert and I respect his wish to let it go. DSL 4.x is not intended for the type of audience I described. DSL 3.x might be, although I expect most new users to do like I did and go for the latest stable release (which may turn them away from Linux for another five years).

That 4.x promotes a different methodology is one thing; that you stress that it is dependant on a different desktop configuration is another. Sure, the new layout promotes reaching for data, but the new tool isn't restricted to that. The position that you are arguing is that you *want* users to work data-centric and that the desktop pushes them to do that. That's great, but it's a model that drifts away from some of the advertised benefits of DSL in general. As long as the DSL main page continues to promote the 3.x lineage as latest release, then all the facts line up and the message is consistent.

I am completely convinced that 4.x is a much better product than 3.x. But the 3.x desktop is better for my aunt, my six-year old niece and my Windows pal who wants to get started with Linux and not suffer until he's ramped up.

I think you're putting words in my mouth when you say that I'm "arguing" for users to be "pushed to" do things they can't or don't understand. Send a Windows user a DOC attachment and it opens in Word automagically when it's clicked. Give someone a copy of an MP3 (legally, of course) and they click on the MP3 and it opens in Windows Media Player, WinAmp, or whatever program they've set to handle that particular kind of data by default. Send someone a link and they'll click on it and it'll open in whichever default browser they use. Or they can use a desktop shortcut to launch the application and do what it's supposed to.

They generally don't open Notepad, search for a document, and then open it. It's the other way around. They browse for the file they want, click, and it's opened in its associated application.

This is what DSL 4 does. DSL 4 is really not as radical as you suggest, nor alien to how most Windows refugees are used to doing things. The most common "see-icon-click" applications are in the tray. I would propose adding sylpheed to it since that's one that isn't as data-centric (where you have a MIME/file type to open when you boot up). But for the most part, they should know from reading the "Getting Started" document what's available and where. They shouldn't have an eyesore of disparate icons thrown in their faces.

I think the earlier versions of DSL with all those icons are the ones less intuitive for Windows users because there's a presumption they even know how to find files, or where to put them, once they click and open an application. No? How many posts are from people trying to figure out permissions, or who quickly abandon running as user dsl for the power they can have as root?

Robert mentioned doing a video. I made two stupid little ones that really didn't get to the heart of the differences between versions. He's right and there needs to be more "instruction." Maybe I'll add a few more later this week.

--------------"It felt kind of like having a pitbull terrier on my rear end."-- meo (copyright(c)2008, all rights reserved)